Lewis Miley - "He can be anything he wants to be"

When Eddie dishes out praise, it pays to listen. Sam reflects on just how good our baby-faced midfielder might be

Eddie Howe is not a manager prone to launching hyperbolic missiles from his press conference chair. He would not be alone in finding the whole “sit in a room and respond to slightly altered versions of the same banal questions” ritual irksome. And so, like many of his peers, Howe has mastered the art of saying nowt of note in response to presser probing.

So, when he occasionally throws a colour bomb out there, two things happen. First, it temporarily stems the slew of exclusives telling us yet again that “oh, guess what, they’ve still not decided what to do about the stadium move”. But more importantly, our collective ears prick to attention.

On Tuesday morning, Howe was asked about Lewis Miley’s development. “He can be anything that he wants to be,” sang Howe, having taken several cream pies to the face and stroking the piano keys. OK, that didn’t happen, and the musical reference is pretty niche.

But he did say it, and what he uttered a few seconds later turned heads.

“Steven Gerrard, I think, is a great one to look at, because I think Steven had that same frame Lewis possesses. He had that yard of pace; he could go box-to-box, and he could score goals.”

Howe did not, despite what headline writers want you to believe, directly compare United’s 18-year-old midfielder and Gerrard. But to even mention a Champions League winning, 114 England cap player when talking about Miley – a man of some 2,000 first-team minutes - is quite something. Very un-Howe like, and a sign of the regard in which he holds Miley.

It is little wonder. On Sunday, with Newcastle trailing, Miley’s first touch opened the space, just enough of it. The second, an equally precise action, steered the ball into the opposite corner. And with that a Tyne-wide grin spread across Miley’s chops and the turnaround began.

It was a moment or three of unmatched serenity within howling gales. The following dozen minutes conjured chaos of the good kind but sans Miley’s intervention, United’s bluster may have been largely unsuccessful. For the spreadsheet dwellers, the expectation that young Lewis would stick that chance in the net was a smidge over 8%.

That assuredness of thought and ability to take the seemingly non-existent half-second is not measurable numerically. It just is. It either exists or it doesn’t. Like faith or a nut allergy. It is what old-school scouts look for, something that can be seen and yet is not tangible. Miley has it. He really does.

Miley’s Forest start was deserved. In what has come to be the customary Etihad episode, his second half showing was the one bright spot. Even so, without Sandro Tonali’s tight hamstring, it is unlikely he would have got the nod. And yet Miley already feels difficult to drop

He will miss out, either at Anfield or if not soon. Having just returned from injury – Sunday was his first league start of the season – his body must be managed. Miley remains a boy-man, still a teenager who would, but for his fame, almost certainly be denied Florita’s entry without ID.

---

---

But he has developed since we first glimpsed him in the Stamford Bridge sunlight. There is power in that frame now. The weight-lifting gurus have done well.

It is worth returning to Miley’s debut, actually, an afternoon where he troubled the woodwork that day after being offered 15 minutes from the bench. At that point, few external to SJP had any idea whether this was simply a generous manager creating a one-off memory, or the opening baby-stride of something bigger.

But then again, Howe doesn’t offer up appearances as prizes. Aside from Amad Diallo and Michael Ndiweni in injury time of last season’s home win over Chelsea, there have been few, if any, debuts for debuts sake. That day there was mitigation – the bench contained three goalkeepers, the Ritchie-Dummett axis, four academy lads and Arthur Cox.

Still, a Premier League outing does not, despite logic suggesting otherwise, guarantee a decent career. Just ask Ndewini, who, just 15 months after running onto the SJP pitch, now pulls on the black and white of Newcastle Blue Star. Now that is not intended to be insulting of Northern League Division 1 – the purest football can be found in the lower nooks and crannies – nor a jibe at Ndewini himself. It is simply a statement of fact.

But Miley has clearly been one club insider were excited about for a while. While his brother, three years his senior, was playing at Wrexham in the U23 – Football League hybrid trophy last winter, Lewis was already with the first team. It is well-documented that the younger sibling tends to flourish. Years of being pushed by an elder see to that. See the Williams sisters. The Hollioake brothers. The Ameobi boys… OK, well you be the judge of that.

Particular notable about Miley’s section is what it screams about the pecking order. No Joelinton. No Tonali. And yet still no Sean Longstaff. Now the latter has played 200+ games for Newcastle, 165 of those in the Premier League. He is not, therefore, ‘effin shite. But he also is what he is, a relatively-well greased cog in a nicely turning wheel. Get the ball; give the ball – usually back to Bruno. Run, run, and run some more.

What he is not – and again, no dig intended – is a ball-playing midfielder capable of tempo dictation. Miley looks to be one of those, the fearless type. Give me the ball. No hiding. While Joelinton has attributes that few midfielders can touch, there is no doubt that his weaknesses lie in technical footballing ability. Miley is, albeit based on a small sample size, ahead of him already.

That is not to say he should usurp our Brazilian bash brother, at least not yet. But if United are to move beyond the staleness Howe has referenced and develop into a team genuinely capable of having the ball and using it, Miley alongside Bruno and Tonali might just be the not-too-distant future.

Look, a week is Aeons in football, so a season or two down the line is lightyears away. Miley has barely played a season’s worth of games, and we know all too well the pitfalls of PSR. But the boy looks ready. Against Bournemouth last season, shortly after our visit to the Yellow Wall and without Bruno, he wasn’t quite there. That is no longer the case.

If Elliot Anderson is forever to be the boy that got away, Miley must – like, absolutely must – be the boy who stayed.

Sam Dalling